Remembering Our Alumnae

Elizabeth (Betty) Mooney Rubino '65

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Elizabeth (Betty) Mooney Rubino was born December 22, 1943 in Montclair, New Jersey to John and Theora Lytle Mooney and died September 2, 2013 in Bossier City, Louisiana.

Elizabeth graduated from Saint Joseph College, Maryland, in 1965 and received her Masters's degree from the University of Missouri in 1967. After two years of teaching at Saint Benedict's College in Kansas, in September of 1969, she received a teaching fellowship for her Ph.D. studies at Case Western Reserve University with scholars such as Crocker, Gauthier, Alter, and Strauss. (they were the reason she chose CWRU in the first place). She received her doctorate in January, 1973. She accepted a teaching offer in August 1973 at Northwestern State University where she taught French for 38 years, retiring in May 2011. Most of her students over the years respected her integrity and knowledge of the French Language and culture which she imparted so well.

She will not only be missed, but most importantly she will always be remembered for her work and academic contribution. As a matter of fact her dissertation about the extensive work of Simone De Beauvoir, the well known life long companion of Jean-Paul Sartre, entitled "Restrictions on Freedom in the Fictional Work of Simone De Beauvor," one of the first and still authoritative studies about which the author herself categorized it, before she died, as 'tres riche et tres pertinente' (very rich and very pertinent) caused Elizabeth to be included in 1977 in the "Who's Who of American Women" and in the mid 80's the inclusion of the whole family in the last published "American Social Register," the edition also including President Ronald Reagan and family. Elizabeth also completed the demanding translation of more than half of the Natchitoches courthouse documents from French to English for the years from 1738 to 1769, residing in the old courthouse.